SOFT Critique
Publication
Editors: Seda Yıldız & Tia Čiček
Autors: Ewa Borysiewicz, Pia Brezavšček, Domen Ograjenšek, Seda Yıldız
Design: Ana Labudović
Publisher: Društvo ŠKUC
2023, Slovenia
The publication accompanies the exhibition SOFT Critique, which took place at the Škuc Gallery in Ljubjana.
This publication is created with a motivation to address the place of art writing within the art field, and support writers, art critics, editors, artists or anyone who applies writing in their practice. After all, exhibition-making is not, or should not be, the sole form of supporting artists. What could be the role of a non-profit space that has a strong presence in the country’s independent art and culture scene, operating since 1978?
Edited together with Tia Čiček, the publication brings together newly commissioned essays. Ewa Borysiewicz touches upon the current and future of art criticism, a creative form, which as some art historians and art critics suppose, may soon become obsolete. Pia Brezavšček describes softness in critique as a “shared process of encounter”, one that allows for transformation in the process, though might be a state of vulnerability. Domen Ograjenšek chooses a literary form of art writing, which merges fiction into theory and theory into fiction.
Valentina Karga’s installation Infrastructure for Feedback (2023), produced for this exhibition, will enable a safe and soft space accompanying the publication and the feedback sessions. Karga’s stone-looking soft sculptures manifesting the questions: What?, Where?, Why?, Who?, When?, provide a self-reflexive infrastructure for grounding oneself. Where do we stand? Who criticises whom and from which perspective?
The publication is available here
Publisher: Društvo ŠKUC
Editors: Seda Yıldız, Tia Čiček
Texts: Ewa Borysiewicz, Pia Brezavšček, Domen Ograjenšek, Seda Yıldız
Design: Ana Labudović
Print: RISO and friends
Print run: 100
Language: English, Slovene
Ljubljana, August 2023
